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"Here's the thing - schools are Crown entities, they are not secret societies. They are public institutions, funded by public money to do the public job of raising achievement. This information is therefore public information."

Ms Parata said league tables were not realistic, because there was no national test as other countries' had.

She said while parents could not look at the results of a school, that should not take the place of visiting a school and talking to teachers to assess how good it was and whether their child was doing well.

She said the first round of data was simply a baseline by which to assess future progress by.

New Zealand Educational Institute president Ian Leckie said the Government had to backtrack on increasing class sizes and was struggling with its plans to close and merge some schools in Christchurch.

"It has failed on class sizes, it is failing in Christchurch and now it has failed to bring any intelligent debate to lifting student achievement.

"It is a vote-catching attempt to ramp up support after a series of failures.''

Mr Leckie said the national standards data showed there was a correlation between low decile schools and student achievement.

He says the only good to come out of the publication of the data was to show the education sector was right in its opposition to unreliable and unmoderated data being released.

Labour's education spokeswoman Nanaia Mahuta also criticised the release of the data.

"Releasing data that even the Prime Minister has described as 'ropey' and inconsistent, and that shows an 'average' only across a narrow range of subjects, is hardly best practice. It doesn't help inform parents on how well their children are performing. Teachers do that,'' she said.